The Infinite Goodbye
by Sagnfraedi
Summary: Set after S4 finale: Derek went off into the sunset after Mexico, leaving Stiles surprisingly angry and hurt, not to mention confused about said feelings. What will happen when Derek pays him a visit? Will Stiles find closure or will it be an open wound forever? Oneshot, Sterek.


p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"strongspan lang="EN-US"AN: This is the first time I've ever posted anything in here, so I'm kinda excited about it :D br /I haven't watched any of S5. I know, it's practically a sin, but what to do when you live in a country that doesn't air the show immediately. Anyway, I wrote this a while back after finishing S4 when I became aware that Tyler Hoechlin wouldn't be main cast anymore. I took it a bit further and pretended he was gone for good. It complies with canon up until S4 ending. Sterek. Oneshot. /span/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"span lang="EN-US"_/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"span lang="EN-US"The Infinite Goodbyebr /_/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"span lang="EN-US"Stiles was pissed. He was also deeply wounded, but mostly he was furious, probably because it was so much easier to just be angry. He wasn't exactly sure why he was hurt, ahem, emangry/em, because really, Derek Hale had never been his best or closest friend. Most of the time they hadn't even been friends, really. They'd been more like reluctant allies with a kind of ongoing rivalry – brains and divine inspiration and baseball bats against muscle and the wisdom of age and fangs, or whatever it was Derek claimed made him so supremely special. So it didn't exactly make sense just how… embetrayed/em Stiles felt. br / Because Derek had left. Just like that. It had even taken Stiles almost two weeks before he realized. Sure, he'd wondered where he'd gone before that, and he'd been eager to have Derek back because of the bazillion questions Stiles had to the newly 'evolved' werewolf. But it had taken him two weeks of complete radio silence and visits to an empty apartment before Stiles had come to the conclusion that Derek was actually emgone/em. As in disappeared, off into the sunset, out of their lives, goodbye, the end. Gone. br / What really pissed Stiles off was that after fucking years of collaborations on suicide missions with him as primary brain and Derek as primary pessimist, Derek hadn't even said goodbye. Not that Stiles would have ever expected the wolf to go give a group hug to his former pack, much less to Stiles in particular, but some kind of recognition would have been nice. Just a 'thanks for saving me all of the time' of some sort. But no, Derek had just driven off in Mexico and never made contact again. br / And Stiles hadn't even realized that it would be the last time he saw the older man. How was he supposed to realize that the look of brotherly acceptance and mutual respect between Derek and Scott was supposed to make it for a goodbye? When Derek hadn't even glanced in his direction? br / Sure, Stiles got that the two had just evolved: Derek into a deeper form of wolf, Scott into a real alpha. Yay, hurray, happy days! Cause for celebration, so let's throw a party. br / Or you could just leave without a fucking word of goodbye, just looking at your once-beta, former alpha and present nobody as only recognition of the fact that after years of wreaking havoc in their lives, he was just going to leave. br / Seriously, though, what was that even? Some form of werewolf telepathy? Well, hello, not everyone had super wolfy powers. Some people around here actually liked to be talked to. Oral communication. The kind where words were spoken and explanations were made. emI'm leaving. I hope you'll be fine without me. I hope I won't die without you there to save my sorry but undeniably toned ass. /emSomething like that would have been really great. But Derek Hale didn't do the whole communication-thing and he didn't do goodbyes. He just left like he arrived; sneakily and unannounced. Because Derek had evolved. And, apparently, outgrown them while he was at it. And Stiles absolutely hated him for it. br / He knew it wasn't rational. Derek and he weren't emfriends/em. Derek didn't need to explain himself to Stiles. But was it really so much to ask for just a word to let him know that he was leaving? Was it?br / Stiles realized that he'd once again been ranting internally over Derek's departure rather than focusing on his homework. He had to get his shit together. Stiles didn't need Derek in his life. He could make do just fine without him, thank you very much. He gritted his teeth and forced his eyes to scan the page in his econ book. His brain refused to take any of them in. Every sentence seemed to spell emDerek Hale is gone/em. Stiles just wanted to forget about him already. Really. Never before had Derek taken up so much room in his thoughts, and Stiles wasn't a fan. He had no idea why he was obsessing over it like some four year old that'd been deprived of his favorite toy. He had no idea what he would have wanted Derek to say to him. He just wished he'd said something at all. Stiles groaned at himself and clashed his head down against his econ book, the cool pages pressing into the skin on his forehead. There was a faint knock at the window. Stiles frowned, because Malia usually just let herself in, but maybe, with him having his head literarily buried in his book, she wondered if it was a bad / "Just come on in." Stiles said without moving, eyes closed to postpone the moment he'd have to deal with reality again. The window opened and someone jumped in. Someone suspiciously quiet. Someone surprisingly not wrapping herself around him. His head snapped up, his eyes wide with a sudden rush of adrenaline. And there, in flesh and blood, stood Derek Hale. Well, Stiles assumed that he was there in flesh and blood, or he'd gone more nuts than he'd thought. Derek was looking at him with a grave and almost solemn expression. br / "Derek? What are you doing here?" Stiles squeaked, somewhere between incredulous and nervous and angry and excited. Derek smiled a little. Derek emsmiled/em at him. What was wrong with him? First he left without goodbyes, and now he was standing in Stiles' bedroom emsmiling/em at him?br / "I thought I'd stop by." He said, as if that explained anything. Stiles looked at him, closely inspecting Derek's posture and clothing and anything else that might give away clues as to what he was doing. br / "You're not staying, are you?" Stiles said, and it wasn't really a question. More of a statement. br / "No, I'm not." Derek agreed. br / "Then why are you here?" Stiles asked. Derek shrugged lightly. br / "I was picking up some stuff from the loft." He said. br / "Do Scott and the pack know you're here?" Stiles asked and Derek shook his head. br / "I'll be gone soon. I just felt I should stop by here first." Derek said. Stiles mind seemed to be suffering from a minor black out. It wasn't even that he couldn't think of a thousand jokes to make, ranging between how cute it was that Derek was visiting him to how Derek always had been a creeper. But the jokes all got stuck in his throat along with any other comment about leaving and goodbyes he might have made. All Stiles could do was look at Derek and emhurt/em. It was too much, it was too weird and Stiles didn't know what to make of any of it, so he averted his gaze. br / "So, you're here now." He said, or more like he mumbled it, because his voice wouldn't carry. br / "Stiles, look at me." Derek's voice was sounding so much closer it almost gave Stiles a heart attack, but he did as he was asked. Derek was hovering over him, just over him, looking down with a grave but caring look. Stiles wanted to be mad at him, to yell at him or hit him with supernatural strength and keep on doing it until Derek hurt as much as he did. But he didn't. He couldn't. He just looked up at Derek like a deer caught in the headlights, waiting for the impact. br / The impact wasn't at all violent, but it shook him worse than any blow would have. br / The impact was gentle, but firm, and left Stiles questioning everything he had ever done, thought and felt. br / The impact was soft and warm and caressed the side of his face and his lips and stole Stiles' breath away. br / And he didn't get it back when the soft, warm, gentle, firm hands left his face. br / But before that he got words. Spoken the way you walk on ice; wary that it will give way and shatter into a thousand pieces and you will plummet into the freezing water and never get up. Stiles wasn't sure if he was the walker or if he was the water. It could be either. Or it could be both. br / "Thank you." It was almost like a question, and Stiles eyes tried to challenge the words, to get Derek to mean them or at least be clear about what part he wasn't sure he was thanking Stiles for. But he couldn't speak up about it, because Derek's warm hands were gently keeping him from interrupting. br / "Thank you for your loyalty. Thank you for everything you have done, for me and for everyone else." Derek's green eyes were locked on his. Stiles couldn't have spoken even if his lips hadn't been occupied by Derek's thumbs. He was pretty sure he'd lost the ability to form coherent sentences. br / "You're a good person, Stiles. Maybe even a great one. And I'm sorry I have to leave you. But for now, it's for the best. You have so many things to accomplish for yourself, and for the pack. I have nothing here. And I'm not needed. It's time I move on." He said. Stiles wanted so desperately to argue against that, tell Derek that emhe/em needed him here, that Derek had emhim/em. But he also understood. Beacon Hills wasn't a happy place for Derek, and it probably never would be. And Stiles did want for Derek to be happy. So he didn't say anything. He just swallowed hard and Derek nodded to himself, almost satisfied. Then he leaned down and pressed his lips against Stiles. Stiles would have been surprised by this if he hadn't been so far past being able to feel surprised already. So instead he leaned into the kiss, stealing a forbidden taste of Derek Hale while he still could. At some point, all of this would catch up to him and he'd be thrown into an existential crisis not to mention major guilt trip over cheating on Malia, but right then, nothing existed past Derek and his lips against his and the tip of Derek's tongue gently bruising against his own. And nothing had ever felt so right, like it was the most natural thing in the world, almost how you take gravity for granted. In the space between two heartbeats, everything seemed to be in place, the way it should always have been, and it was the best infinity Stiles had ever experienced. And then it was gone, Derek's lips no longer on his, just a whisper in his ear left behind. br / "If the time is ever right, come find me." Derek said, and then everything was taken from Stiles in one instant. The warmth, the infinity. His breath was gone and it didn't come back. Neither did Derek. There was just Stiles, sitting on his bed like a grenade just went off inside of him and left him torn in pieces, though he was too shell shocked to react. He wondered if he would ever react again. Maybe in time he would. Maybe when the time was right. a name="_GoBack"/a/span/p 


End file.
